Weightless
by Fanatical Alice
Summary: Lily Luna Potter falls apart and flies away.


**notenotenote; this is for the Seven Devils competition and the prompt was 'And what have we done here?' I didn't get the chance to edit so i'm sorry for any mistakes - thanks for reading! **

* * *

Lily Luna Potter doesn't want to turn into one of _those girls_ because she's seen it happen before. It isn't pretty.

(So instead you tell yourself you're different.)

Lily convinces herself that she won't be tempted to sink to that level. She's an independent woman of thirteen years old and she _refuses_ to become one of them. Even if it means alienating herself from the rest of the girls in her year – fine. Because she has Rose. And Rose is special, like her.

There's just one…dilemma.

(You know that Rose is in love with Scorpius.) She _knows_.

…Because she might be love with him to.

But she still continues to tell herself it's different.

It's a different kind of love, like the endearing adoration she holds for her brothers. (Though it's not always apparent. They make you so _mad_.)

That's it! They're practically siblings, her and Scorpius! Her heart shouldn't beat faster whenever he ruffles her hair. Her cheeks shouldn't flush red when he accidently brushes her, or touches her hand. He shouldn't haunt her in all of her dreams... His smiling face. His laughing face. His carefree cornflower blue eyes that capture her every time they meet.

It _shouldn't_ happen but it _does_.

Lily Potter is adamant.

Rose Weasley is stubborn.

But they are special. "So it doesn't matter."

* * *

It started out as a challenge. An "I dare you" sort of thing amongst the girls.

"How long can _you_ go without eating?" Betsy snapped against the insults made to her fickle dieting efforts. Her meaty hand caresses the loop of fat around her belly.

"Longer then you," Henrietta replied snottily. Anything that girl said came out snotty. Lily didn't like her. Lily didn't like _any _of them.

(But most of all - you didn't _expect_.)

She didn't _know_ what it could turn into, given the opportunity. Handed her insecurities on a silver platter, the Monster gobbled them right up and gripped her tight in its scaly claws.

She lies on her four-poster bed. Alone now. The maroon curtains drawn; all of the lights off. She is lying in utter darkness, and imagines she's soaring high above Hogwarts – weightless. The thought sends a thrill from her hairline to the tips of her toes. She loves this feeling. This _hollow_ inside of her stomach. It is the first comfort she's found since the beginning of school. Not even Rose can reach through to her. Because Rose is a part of the problem, isn't she?

_Rose and Scorpius._

_Scorpius and Rose._

"How should I ask her out, Lil?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"You're a girl, aren't you?"

(You thought he'd never notice.)

Lily nearly cried. Because boys were so _stupid_. Because Rose was so _oblivious_. Because she, Lily, was turning into one of _those girls_ – those sniveling, pathetic, weakling girls who clung and whined and were always thinking about that one boy who'd stolen their hearts – and she hated herself for it.

Why couldn't she stop hating herself?

(It's so easy for you to do.)

* * *

Fifteen year old Lily Luna Potter didn't want the Monster.

(But you can feel it.)

It gnawed away at troublesome, unwanted, flabs of skin on her body. In her head, it whispered profanities and secrets best hidden under lock and key. It tainted her very thoughts with the tantalizing power of being weightless. Lily learned from the Monster. She learned self control. She learned strength, over herself, over others. She learned how easily a lie could slip off her tongue and the cold feeling of achievement when someone fell for the sugar coated words she spouted.

Lily grew to love the Monster. It really cared about her. It really did.

Lily continued to love Scorpius. Because he was her best friend, and nothing at all like those other boys who groped her in the shadows and tried to seduce her with stale lines. Most days, it was only the sight of her endearing, nerdy little Slytherin crush that could keep her mind functioning at an acceptable rate. But then-

_Rose_.

"Aren't you going to have any breakfast?"

(smile. smile. smile. don't let her know you hate her.)

"I'm not hungry this morning."

Lily stopped replying after a while. Rose stopped asking.

Rose stopped caring.

But Rose didn't matter.

Not to the Monster, anyway. (Because the Monster only cares about you.)

* * *

"Guess what! Lil! Guess what!"

"…Yeah?" Her dull gaze catches him off guard for a moment – but he seems certain that this news, this _fantastic_ news, will cheer her up. She's on his side, after all. They're _friends_.

He just doesn't notice in all his ecstasy. Her gaunt face. Her spindly body. Her bony knuckles, which tighten into knobby fists every time she sees him.

"She said _yes_ Lil! She said _yes_!"

Lily cries this time.

A little.

Just a…little.

On the inside.

(The Monster laps your tears.)

_Cracking_.

* * *

"How light… do you have to be…to fly?" Lily asks the birds. Her voice is wispy and easily disintegrates into the wind. They can't hear her, of course, for they're much too high. But she pretends they can. She pretends she catches their answer as well, in the cusp of her ear. Whisking in and out, they leave the faintest trace of memory.

_Weightless_.

(Then that's what you'll be.)

Lily smiles. Her chapped lips pull tight over her teeth. It's winter and the snow is seeping through her thin jacket, soaking into her skin, needling her bones. But she's not cold. Or, she doesn't think she is. She has lost all awareness of her body. It doesn't frighten her though. Because this way she's invincible. Not the snow, not Scorpius, not Rose, nothing can hurt her. Or make her feel the chill racking down her spine.

She spreads her arms and legs wide and struggles to make a snow angel. The snow is surprisingly hard to shift. Or she's just becoming weaker. …Weak enough to crumble into the crisp white powder.

Weak enough to disappear in the Monster's constant grasp.

Lily backtracks on herself. She knows she's not weak. Could a _weak_ person accomplish what she had? Make themselves almost-weightless like _her_? It's not easy. She's always dizzy. She's always playing a balancing act on the clouds. And if she falls? Always face to face with temptation. She has strategies to distract herself. She's a professional (that's what you tell yourself), but the symptoms aren't easy to avoid. Sometimes Lily can _feel _the blood pulsing in her head, moving backwards in her shriveled veins. It's a strange sensation, but not an overall unpleasant one. She's had the joy of fainting into Scorpius's arms a number of times and she only has herself to thank for that. She knows how to tread her own path now.

Lily knows how to make herself _something_ out of this entire _nothing_. A splotch of _color_ on this white _canvas_. She will have her final stand. And when she does her legs do not quiver. Her hands do not tremble.

(And when you wither into the white, you have no regret.)

_None_.

* * *

"Hey Lil?"

"Hm?"

"…Do you believe in true love?"

"No. You bloody sap."

Scorpius glanced at her, wounded. "That's pretty harsh."

"I'm lying," Lily blurts (before you can stop yourself.). The words are out and there's no room for retreat.

She can feel herself floating. She's light as a feather.

(Weightless.)

"Because the moment I met you,

(Flying.)

I fell in love."

(Gone.)

And she kisses him.

Right on the lips.

The Monster snickers.

(You grin.)

_His_ _lips_.

_His!_

He kisses her back before he can think about Rose, and she hopes that the Weasley girl never crosses his mind again. Because she's finally kissed him and she's finally happy and she thinks she might not mind being one of _those girls_ after all-

He shoves her away from him. His eyes are wide. Horrified. At himself. (At _you_.)

"_What are you doing?"_

* * *

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Lily painted her mask, her makeup, on extra nice today. So she'd have another excuse not to eat. Don't want to smudge the lipstick. She's begun to hate food, but her stomach is still crying for its companion. Her _flat_ stomach. Lily's grown fond of stroking that smooth expanse of skin. And when she does, her brushing fingers can feel every indent of every bone of every rib.

(And you're _beautiful_.)

Even when there's pumpkin juice dripping down her chin.

"What's the _matter_ with you?" Rose shrieks. "I don't even _know_ you anymore!"

Lily smiles at this. Isn't it _funny_? Are broken hearts _hilarious_? And to think it's all because of this insolent girl. The girl Lily once considered to be her best friend, of all things. No. _No_. Rose Weasley is the true monster. If Rose Weasley didn't exist – Scorpius -

"You never knew me. You never _tried_ to know me."

Rose shakes her head. _She _looks like she's about to cry and it makes _Lily_ want to laugh. They are polar opposites. There is only one thing – one _person_ – that they have in common.

"_I_ _hate_ _you_."

_Drip._

* * *

It is a week after the incident.

Lily can feel herself physically drifting away. Piece by piece.

First her heart.

(There is no one left to love.)

Then her eyes.

(There is nothing left to see.)

Then her limbs.

(There isn't anyone for you to hold.)

There will be no final stand for Lily Luna Potter. And maybe she's known this from the beginning. People like her don't deserve a last word or a chance to redeem themselves. She's pushed everyone away, hasn't she? …Her family. …Her friends. The Monster – her last companion – has gone slack on her because she _is_ weak after all. Weak and useless. She doesn't blame the Monster for leaving her.

_Abandoned_.

* * *

For the first time in a long time, seventeen year old Lily Luna Potter looks at her reflection. _Sees_ herself with uncaring eyes, but a sharp, weary, mind. It's a struggle to stay alert, to resist throwing a cotton blanket over her head and _forgetting_…however. She's been _resisting_ this whole time (this worthless time spent). Lily figures she can last.

And so she,

_Really_ looks.

_Truly_ sees.

(_It hits like a bomb and everything splatters_)

She is a shell.

Empty.

(_This is it?_)

Hollow.

(_This is the end?_)

All of her pieces have flown away.

She can't remember what's left.

And for the first time – it frightens her straight to the core.

(_What have you done here?_)

_What have I done?_

* * *

_One Month Later._

"Are you going to the funeral?" Scorpius asks, almost hesitant.

Rose wrings her hands together. She's nervous, but she's stubborn. Always stubborn. "Of course. Are you?"

"Of course."

There is a pause between them. This is rare, because for the two of them there is always something to say, to share and express and debate. They are rarely ever silent around each other. But today is a different matter entirely.

He knows what she's going to ask him.

She knows he knows.

Now it is simply a game.

"Did you ever love her?" She is blunt, but he can see the self loathing in her hooded eyes, bone-tired from lack of sleep. One of her closest friend's is dead and this is all she cares about? But she'll ask anyway, just to get her answers.

_Lil_.

And he is unwillingly dragged back into the memories of that night; it feels so long ago, wrapped in the silk shadows of the corridor. One of the many nights they'd snuck out together to explore the school and defy the rules because they'd imagined themselves larger then life.

The night when she'd kissed him – and those seconds within the moment he'd felt her lips on his and that _relief_ that had consumed him. Pushed him to kiss her back. Because all he could feel was _her_. Lily. Her sweet scent and her cheeky grins and her sunny aura – the things that he treasured about her had been so vacant during the time he'd played the clueless fool, but all came flooding back to her in the single kiss shared between them.

As if she could return to her old self again, for him. _If he'd only_ _choose her instead_.

Is what she screamed at him after he'd rejected her so violently.

"…No.

She was only ever a friend to me."

That would be the first, and last, lie Scorpius Malfoy ever told to Rose Weasley.


End file.
